On August 11, Charles Taylor of Liberia handed over the Presidency of the Republic to his Vice President, Moses Zeh Blah. Later on the same day, he travelled out of the country of his birth, going into exile in Nigeria.
In terms of the Constitution of the Republic of Liberia, the term of office of the Taylor government, elected in 1997, in elections described by the UN and ECOWAS as "free, fair, and credible", will end in October this year. This is the month during which general elections should have been held. The elected Head of State would then assume his position in January 2004.
In June this year, in Accra, just before the opening session of the Liberia peace negotiations, when we met as Heads of State and Government attending this opening, we agreed with then President Taylor that, since the scheduled elections could not be held in October, he should, in October, hand over the reigns of power to the Vice President.
We further agreed that the new President would then work to form an inclusive Transitional Government of National Unity, also bringing in the armed opposition groups, LURD and MODEL. This government would lead Liberia to its next democratic elections. Hopefully, these would be held in October 2004, the necessary conditions for free and fair elections having been created by this Transitional Government.
To our surprise, on this very same day, the UN-approved Court in Sierra Leone issued a warrant of arrest for President Charles Taylor. None of us could understand why this action was announced precisely on the day that the Liberian negotiations began. Our concern derived from the fact that the action of this Court created the possibility for the complete collapse of the negotiations even before they began.
Nevertheless, we agreed that the Opening Session of the negotiations and the substantive negotiations would go ahead as planned. In his statement, President Taylor would state his readiness to relinquish his position as President, if this contributed to the end of the war in Liberia, setting her on the road to a stable and permanent democratic peace. Accordingly, President Taylor made this statement in the presence of all the delegates to the negotiations conference.
As announced by Ghana's President John Kufuor, and Chairperson of ECOWAS, at the hand-over ceremony in Monrovia on August 11, the government led by President Blah will cede power to the Transitional Government that will be constituted by decision of the Accra Liberian Peace Conference. Given all these developments, President Kufuor justifiably made bold to say - the war in Liberia is over! The departure of Charles Taylor from the country of his birth constituted an important contribution to the determined effort now being made, to end the carnage that has gripped Liberia for fourteen years.
The Republic of Liberia was established in 1847 by the American Colonisation Society. This US non-governmental organisation was established to repatriate to Africa those Africans who had been freed from slavery in the United States.
One of the most distinguished 19th century citizens of the new republic came from the Virgin Islands. This was the early and outstanding African patriot and Pan-Africanist, Edward Wilmot Blyden. Born in the Virgin Islands in 1832, he immigrated to Liberia in 1850.
He served in many posts in the new republic, and even contested the Presidency in 1885. He subsequently immigrated to Sierra Leone, established in a manner similar to Liberia, and died in this country in 1912, the year of birth of the ANC.
On February 16, 1890, he delivered a speech at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington D.C., USA. Responding to remarks made shortly before by a US Senator in the US Senate, he said:
"When the orator says that to the Caucasian race 'humanity is indebted for religion, for literature, for civilization,' he is speaking with the inexactness not of the historian, but of the politician. Everybody knows that the basis of the civilization and literature of present day was on the Nile and not among the Caucasian race - not on the Ilissus, the Tiber, the Rhine or the Thames, but on the rivers of Ethiopia. There were only two steps between Egypt and modern Europe - Greece and Rome. Greece took not only civilization and literature, but even religion from Ethiopia. Such were the wonderful developments of civilization and literature and religion in that country, that the early poets and historians of Greece, unable to understand such marvelous indigenous growth, attributed it to the direct interference of the gods, who they affirm went every year to feast with the Ethiopians."
Edward Blyden must be turning in his grave as he has watched the African country of his adoption, Liberia, consume its own children in a sustained orgy of blood-letting and killing, caught in a desperate struggle for power among various factions of Liberians.
He had hoped that, once more, the gods would feast with the peoples of Africa, including the former African slaves who, after a long period of pain and suffering, had taken to ships that sailed east, across the Atlantic Ocean.
In April 1998, another distinguished African, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Ghanaian, Kofi Annan, submitted a report to the Security Council, entitled: "The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa."
Among other things, he wrote:
"More than three decades after African countries gained their independence, there is a growing recognition among Africans themselves that the continent must look beyond its colonial past for the causes of current conflicts.
Today more than ever, Africa must look at itself. The nature of political power in many African States, together with the real and perceived consequences of capturing and maintaining power, is a key source of conflict across the continent. It is frequently the case that political victory assumes a "winner-takes-all" form with respect to wealth and resources, patronage, and the prestige and prerogatives of office. A communal sense of advantage or disadvantage is often closely linked to this phenomenon, which is heightened in many cases by reliance on centralized and highly personalized forms of governance. Where there is insufficient accountability of leaders, lack of transparency in regimes, inadequate checks and balances, non-adherence to the rule of law, absence of peaceful means to change or replace leadership, or lack of respect for human rights, political control becomes excessively important, and the stakes become dangerously high. This situation is exacerbated when, as is often the case in Africa, the State is the major provider of employment and political parties are largely either regionally or ethnically based. In such circumstances, the multi-ethnic character of most African States makes conflict even more likely, leading to an often violent politicisation of ethnicity. In extreme cases, rival communities may perceive that their security, perhaps their very survival, can be ensured only through control of State power. Conflict in such cases becomes virtually inevitable."
He then went on to say: "During the cold war, external efforts to bolster or undermine African Governments were a familiar feature of super-power competition. With the end of the cold war, external intervention has diminished but has not disappeared. In the competition for oil and other precious resources in Africa, interests external to Africa continue to play a large and sometimes decisive role, both in suppressing conflict and in sustaining it. Foreign interventions are not limited, however, to sources beyond Africa. Neighbouring States, inevitably affected by conflicts taking place within other States, may also have other significant interests, not all of them necessarily benign. While African peacekeeping and mediation efforts have become more prominent in recent years, the role that African Governments play in supporting, sometimes even instigating, conflicts in neighbouring countries must be candidly acknowledged."
Much of what UNSG Kofi Annan said relates to Liberia, among others of our countries. In this context, the Liberian, Tiawan Saye Gongloe, addressed a meeting in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this month, under the title: "Liberia: A Nation Still Struggling to Live up to its Meaning".
Among other things, he said:
"The dream that inspired the proclamation of a colony for freed slaves and free-born a sovereign state, was contained in the Declaration of Independence of Liberia. In that declaration, the founders of Liberia, (freed slaves), bemoaned their denial of all rights accorded other citizens of the United States of America as citizens and the lack of avenues of redress of grievances. Therefore, the promise of Liberia was the hope and opportunity to establish an asylum from oppression for the victims of such abuses, according to the Declaration of Independence. Liberia was meant to be a country where the protection of human rights would be given the highest national consideration. The desire for the enjoyment of all rights accorded a free person was the motivation for establishing Liberia. It is called Liberia, the land of liberty, because it was meant to be a country of freedom from abuse. The motto of Liberia is 'The Love of Liberty Brought us Here'.
"Liberia was intended to be a human rights paradise in Africa. For over a century the relationship between the founding fathers of Liberia and the natives was one that could be easily described as black apartheid. It was only as late as 1948 that natives were allowed to vote in Liberia. However, the right to vote was in reality only restricted to the right to cast a ballot, not a right to contest for office and be voted for. Attempts by President William R. Tolbert to change the situation and allow equal participation in government was seriously resisted by the oligarchy of the descendants of the founders of Liberia. It was against this background that a group of native soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia overthrew the Government of President Tolbert by assassinating him on April 12, 1980."
However, the military government led by Samuel Doe failed to address the interests of the Liberian people, regardless of the promises it made. Charles Taylor led an armed rebellion in 1989 to overthrow the military regime of Samuel Doe. He was elected President of Liberia in 1997, following a seven-year period of peace-keeping and enforcement, and mediation by ECOWAS, led by Nigeria.
But soon enough, the war resumed, conducted by the armed groups LURD and MODEL. Both these military conflicts, before and after 1997, have resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Liberians, with even larger numbers displaced and driven into exile as refugees.
Of the greatest importance also, is the fact that the conflict in Liberia has resulted in this country serving as a major source of conflict and instability in West Africa as a whole. This has affected such neighbours of Liberia as Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Cote d'Ivoire, and led to the emergence of a large group of African mercenaries, available for hire by whoever has money.
In his speech in Atlanta, the Liberian lawyer, Tiawan Saye Gongloe, said:
"A long-term solution to the Liberian problem will require addressing the root causes of the conflict. The Liberia conflict is rooted in a legacy of repression and social injustice due to exclusionist governance, that has lasted for over a century and a half of Liberia's existence. Therefore, the long-term solution for resolving the conflict in Liberia is to put in place a governing process that will guarantee popular participation in governance and respect for the rights of all Liberians without regard to origin, tribe, family background, belief, sex or other identities. In order for peace to prevail in Liberia and for conflicts to be avoided, governance in Liberia must be reflective of the name Liberia, the land of Liberty."
He ended with the following words:
"Africa has become a collective shame: we must work collectively to make it a collective pride. We are in this boat together. Let us build upon the integrity of A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and other African patriots to restore dignity to the peoples of Africa. This challenge may seem too difficult to meet, but with God and determination, all things are possible. May God rescue Africa."
On August 11, we were in Monrovia, Liberia, a country with just over 3 million resident citizens, because it is our collective responsibility as Africans, to rescue Africa and her children. When we are done, and as Edward Blyden foresaw, the gods will return to feast with us.
